Electrical connectors mounted to and in electrical connection with a circuit board may sometimes require exposed portions of the pins to be bent or deformed before being fixed to the circuit board by soldering. However, for a high density connector that has a great number of pins arranged in limited space, the pitch of the pins, that is the distance between two adjacent pins, is quite small. To avoid undesired contact between the pins, a spacer is usually provided and incorporated with the high density connector for positioning and retaining the pins. Examples of spacers are disclosed in Taiwan patent application Nos. 81210871 and 84207642 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,125,853.
In FIG. 1 of the attached drawings, an example of a conventional high density connector is shown. The connector comprises an insulator 10 defining a slot for receiving a plurality of conductive pins 11 therein. Each pin 11 has a portion extending out of the insulator 10 and bent 90 degrees for fitting into positioning holes 131 defined on a spacer 13. A shielding shell 12 is attached to the insulator 10 by means of fasteners 14 and clips 15 for shielding the pins 11.
As shown in FIG. 2, the manufacturing process of the conventional high density connector comprises the following steps. The pins 11 are fit in the insulator 10 row by row by means of an external jig (step 50). The pins 11 are then bent 90 degrees (step 51) and aligned with and inserted into the corresponding positioning holes 131 of the spacer 13 (step 52). Thereafter, the shielding shell 12 is mounted to the insulator 10 (step 53) and secured thereto by means of the fasteners 14 and the clips 15 (step 54). However, due to the large number of pins 11 is great, inserting the pins 11 in the corresponding positioning holes 131 of the spacer 13 is difficult. A flawed product may be obtained if any one of the pins 11 is not in perfect alignment with the positioning holes 131. Such a manufacturing procedure is laborious and hinders efficient productivity.
Hence, an improved method for manufacturing a high density connector is requisite whereby the pins can be efficiently and effectively fit into the spacer thereby overcoming the disadvantage of the prior art.